A Little Child's Monument/Among the Mountains
MORNING.
I muse at dawn upon the heights alone.
A wakeful awe of silence reigns around;
The pines are hushed, no bird breathes any sound.
The mountains are a symphony, whose tone,
Piled in the expanse of memory, hath grown
Slow-reared; they seem to heave before mine eyes
From deep, dark glens, to clear auroral skies,
In billowy graduation, from the bowed
Low notes of dusky lowlands to the loud
Pæan of gratulation that is blown
Heavenward from awful summits fraught with morn,
One fiery snow! Upon the craggy surge,
Rude rocky village eyries are upborne
Over bleak umber plains; from verge to verge
The higher hills that neighbour them have worn
For ages the pine forest vast and grave;
Nature arises from Death's cold engulfing wave
Fair facing these, in Morn's unearthly smile,
O'er purple Main's horizon, lo! a snowy-mountained isle!
In soft air's primrose,
A violet-flushing rose.
Shadowy gleaming island! art thou solid strand,
Or pageant of cloudland?
In memory's far world a visionary pile?
Some dear dream beyond our scope
In heavenlier realms of faith or hope?
When will our wings, or fair El-Sirat come,
And we fly home?
Of musing faith and prayer, of love and lofty deed,
A very iris-arch to heaven is wrought,
Till from the spirit falls her homely weed,
And white wings wave where otherwhile was nought
Of star-yfraught!
Psyche lost her wings! from death, and wrong, and pain,
Behold! they are born again;
So these are very gain.
Near heights, transfigured in ethereal,
Essential glory, burn purpureal.
Fair ample Morn, in silence o'er the sea,
Opens her shrine, her sanctuary of bloom,
To ocean's billowy pure foam,
Unfolds unfathomable blossom,
Reveals the subtle secret of her bosom,
Pours from a crystal urn
Heavenly hues love-born,
Till Day's archangel, pulsing radiancy,
Swiftly emerging from the deep's grey pall,
A flower of fire ascends, and floating free,
Winged with intolerable splendour, soars imperially!
Then all the vibrant ocean blazeth,
And his grand blinding glory praiseth.
But thou, O Sun! dost never die,
Nor ascend on high!
Earth, whene'er she turns away,
Deems there is a death of Day.
Herbs wake to fragrance; flowers from soft dream;
A myriad hearts pour forth their orison
At thy sublime epiphany, O solemn-soaring Sun!
Yet thou, fair Light Supreme,
To these who feel thy beam,
Art but a moon-pale shadow of the Eternal One!
Thou mighty living Soul, in whom we live and move,
Feedest upon the fire divine of spiritual Love.
NOON.
Now at full noon a silver silence reigns;
The pines are fragrant, and the mountain thyme;
Nor bee nor bird-song the still light contains;
Sunned sober fir forests descend or climb;
Blue skies arch over blue inclining seas.
Midway beneath me, girt with leafy gold,
A brown old convent in a nest of trees
Tranquil abides; yon lowly shadows fold
Thee, dearest daughter, sweet companion!
Far cloven crags, a pale grey brotherhood,
Dream in the azure, phantoms tall and wan,
Bounding a billowy waste of solitude,
Brown rolling realms of desert shadow-stained
From slow white cloud; yon height of sombre form
For all day's rich caresses, hath retained
His lonely gloom, broods o'er the night enorm
Of his own shadow whelming the wide earth.
Now in deep stillness, as of calm white death,
What wraith of dubious low sound hath birth
As from another world? slow wins more breath?
May it be mellow sound of some far bell
From a far hamlet on far height? But why
Do the dear airs bear him I love so well,
The image of my lost, who ever nigh
Mv heart abides, more close against me, so
That I behold him, and he seems to call
In these low melodies that faintly flow,
And float upon blue waves aerial?
His own sweet self thrills memory; her hall,
Dark as a tomb, glows warm; the cloudy pall
Exhales; he wears fair flowers for a dress,
Pure outbirth of a child's meek holiness!
His own sweet self haunts memory!
Who but he,
When I remember, thrilleth me
Out of his own eternity?
The dead, the distant, all are with us still;
Yea, they may be more with us if we will,
For deepening our roots, and branching higher,
Illusions shrivel in God's unconsuming fire,
And we find one another
Where is no death to hide, no mortal life to smother,
But spirits lie awake, and one upon their mighty Mother!
EVENING.
Now pearl-grey ocean blent with opal skies,
We know no more dim airs from aery main;
In smooth clear mirrors a winged vesse lies,
While many a slender purple ocean-stain
Hangs like a cloud; the shallop in still even
Seems a white sail slow sailing up to heaven;
A ghostly glow receives it; lo! it fades,
Unbodied, in the heart of ever-deepening shades!